


Decisions

by Orlha



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, Cause fuck team 7, Gen, Light Angst, Self-Reflection, not in a physical sense though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 17:21:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21103148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlha/pseuds/Orlha
Summary: Sakura dies during Kaguya's attack only to realise she's been here before and there's a shadow in the darkness waiting for her.





	Decisions

Sakura is desperately trying to keep up. She ducks a bone spear, barely leaping onto another crumbling platform. She’s exhausted from remotely healing her teammates, and the fact she’s doing that while avoiding Kaguya’s attack goes unnoticed.

Kaguya sends a triple attack, one of which deflected by Sasuke into her. Sakura calls out, her words dying in mid-scream in her throat.

Sakura is falling.

Black, black black.

She have no hands, no legs, no feet. 

She’s been here before. 

_“So you’re back here again.”_

Sakura looks at the voice. A featureless shadow in the darkness. She’s somehow able to distinguish that from the darkness around her and now that her attention is focused, Sakura can tell that she’s in the middle of some sort of tunnel with a dim light on both ends, one warm and one cold.

“Are you going to walk back to them again, or go with me?”

The blob holds out their hand. It’s not a blob, it’s Inner. Inner that had vanished during the Pein’s attack. Sakura had always assumed that Inner had been a mental break and she had somehow managed to mend it, yet Inner is here.

“Inner—” she says, hands reaching out before pulling them back in time. “You disappeared!”

_“You left me.”_

Sakura remembers now. She remembers turning away, walking back through the inky swamp, crawling through the jungle to get back.

“You wanted to leave!”

_“Because there was no one who wanted you!”_

Sakura rears back. The words cut deeper than she would admit to and worse of all, because it is true. Naruto and Sasuke only ever had eyes for each other. Yamato and Sai had eyes for Kakashi and Shishou only mourned for the people she once had and will never have again.

They say it’s important to love yourself before other people, but how do you love yourself if you’ve never been loved?

“There was,” Sakura replies, the words that she had wanted to say for so long. The answer she could never really accept because it sounded needy and pathetic yet was true all the same. 

Inner seemed to give her a sympathetic look and Sakura pushes herself up, throat hoarsely whispering, “it was me.”

Inner says nothing, the silence sinking thickly as it drew on. Sakura had to go back - to her team, to the people who never recognized her efforts for what they were.

It didn’t matter to her. She loved them just the same. 

And when it became obvious that Inner wasn’t going to say anymore, Sakura turns to face the cold light. “Is the payment still the same?”

Inner lets out a single mirthless laugh and shakes her head._ “Just as it was the last time. Only you don’t have me to leave behind this time.”_

Sakura takes a single step towards the light, the inky darkness still sticking to her.

_“What are you giving up this time? Your sight? Your voice? Your sanity? All the things you could have if you just went with me?”_

Sakura struggles forward, ignoring Inner’s words. 

_“Is it worth it?”_

The very same people who preached about team being family, who never seemed to look at her. Sakura remembers the loneliness whelming in her, threatening to suffocate her on some nights.

“_Is it worth giving up so much of yourself for the people who barely notice your efforts?”_

Sakura halts, a despairing sigh rattles in her chest.

_“If we go, we could be together again. We might have a real family that would love us. They don’t even miss you, Sakura.” _Inner holds her hand out. If Sakura accepted Inner’s hand, they could go on and be reborn again. A family that loved her the way neither her blood family nor team family ever did. As twins and souls bound together forever, Inner have a real chance of having an actual body this time instead of being the twin that was never born.

_“You’re already dead. It’s okay to let go.”_

Sakura turns, the dim light shedding a strip of light across her arms. Lines still crisscrossed what visible portions of her arms, pale streaks of healed scars mar her skin, a deep groove circles her middle knuckle.

Hand reaching out for Inner, she starts to say, “I guess—”

_“Don’t go Sakura! You’re not allowed to leave me!”_

The marred skin she received from training under Shishou disappears, replaced by the soft skin she had as a genin. 

“Kakashi-sensei…”

_“I thought you were stronger than this, hag.”_

She gives a weak smile at Inner, pulling her hand back.

_“Even if they forget you after this?”_

“That’s okay. Because I love myself. I love the person I became. I didn’t become that because of them.”

_“Even if it hurts?”_

“What is life without hurts?” Sakura holds out a globe. “Take it, because I don’t need beauty to be the person I want to be.”

She turns back to the cold light, pushing on even as the darkness tries to hold her back.

_And wakes._

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone missed it, 
> 
> 1) Sakura wouldn't remember this conversation she had with Inner.
> 
> 2) Sakura was injured by the spear thingy... she gave up "beauty" to return. AKA. Sakura would be scarred badly by it
> 
> 3) Kakashi & Sai called for her at the end. Why I picked those 2? Because in the canon parts, it was Kakashi that was always watching out for her....... in the war. Also, man, they looked really close in those screencaps. AND SAI. Because he always said the opposite of what he meant... so Hag = Beautiful? IDK, I liked the idea of Sai and Sakura latching on to that. SO I RAN WITH IT. I personally would have imagined Sai continuing calling her that and ppl getting angry but Sakura's like total chill. Cuz Sai always though Sakura was beautiful inside and stuff.. :D


End file.
